3: Chapter 3: The 500 Yuan Grand Prize – Don't Make Me Slap You

Lin Feng took out his Nokia 5230 and stood by the roadside, pretending to look at his phone.

[A lottery shop that has been operating for 10 years, business is booming, customer volume is astonishing, daily turnover can reach 5 digits. Hidden intelligence: The only scratch-off ticket inside the counter contains a 500 Yuan grand prize.]

Lin Feng was just worrying about not having enough capital to start a business, and this piece of intelligence pleasantly surprised him.

Numerical lotteries are too fake.

In a sense, even if you were cheating, it would be impossible to win.

Before every draw, the internal database filters out the optimal winning result to ensure the house never loses.

As for those massive jackpots in the news, anyone who hasn't been kicked in the head by a donkey or consumed melamine knows what's really going on.

The officials serve the people and think of the common folk everywhere; shouldn't they secure some benefits for themselves?

However, scratch-offs are different; you can actually win, though the probability is very low.

500 Yuan—in 2010, for a student, that was quite a lot.

With this money, he could make it through the remaining 20 days.

The lottery shop was shrouded in smoke, with sighs and gasps of surprise echoing incessantly.

After Lin Feng entered, no one noticed him; even the owner was busy studying the winning sequence of the Pick 3 lottery with a group of veteran gamblers.

He looked at the glass counter, and sure enough, there was only one 10 Yuan scratch-off ticket lying there, likely picked out by someone.

[A ten-Yuan denomination scratch-off ticket, unsold for 5 days, new batch of scratch-offs has not arrived. Hidden value: Prize amount 500 Yuan]

Sure enough, the hidden intelligence never lies to me; this is closer to me than my own father.

"Boss."

"Boss…"

"Hmm? Oh… coming, coming."

The owner was an old man in his 50s who looked quite energetic.

He had a cigarette in his mouth and asked with a full smile, "Young man, what kind of lottery ticket are you buying?"

"I'll take this scratch-off."

He was stunned and advised, "This is the last one; it's been sitting there for three days."

"Besides, a 1,000 Yuan grand prize was won from this pack a week ago; it's highly unlikely there will be another large prize."

The owner was a very easygoing person who had been running the lottery shop in the neighborhood for seven or eight years, mostly serving local residents.

He didn't like to scam people, especially young people like Lin Feng, who looked like a college student at a glance.

10 Yuan could buy a boxed meal.

"It's fine, my luck has been good lately, I want to try it out. I'm only buying one anyway."

"Alright, maybe your luck really is good."

The owner smiled and took out the scratch-off, placing it on the counter.

Lin Feng picked up the scratching tool and quickly scratched off the barcode.

This was the simplest type of scratch-off; compared to ten years later, it was much more straightforward.

The winning area read: Prize 500 Yuan.

The owner exclaimed in surprise, "Whoa, you actually won! Not bad luck."

"Boss, it's because your place has good Feng Shui."

"Haha, you sure know how to talk, young man."

The owner was beaming with joy; the prize money was issued by the state, so it had nothing to do with him.

But greeting people with a smile is always the right thing to do; that's how you retain customers and keep the lottery shop's business thriving.

"Come here, I'll redeem it for you right now."

The owner didn't dawdle and readily handed the 500 Yuan cash to Lin Feng.

Leaving the lottery shop, Lin Feng exhaled a breath of stale air and felt refreshed.

Touching the 500 Yuan in his pocket, he felt a bit surreal.

You have to realize, his monthly living expenses were only 800 Yuan.

The feeling of having money is really good.

Lin Feng didn't plan to walk back to school; he hailed a taxi on the side of the road and headed straight to Shencheng University.

Familiar environment, familiar scent.

Exuding the aura of youth, the best four years of his life would be spent here.

It's just that by the time many people realize this, they have already reached the age of forty.

"Second Brother, where the hell did you go? I haven't seen you all day."

Lin Feng was the second oldest in his dormitory, so everyone gave him a rather flashy nickname.

A scent of sweaty sourness mixed with hormones hit his face; this was youth.

In his previous life, Lin Feng would definitely have dodged far away in disgust and complained about him a few times.

"Second Brother this, Second Brother that, call me Daddy."

Lin Feng smiled and walked up to him.

"Damn, you brat, are you itching for a beating?"

"Wait a second."

"Hehe, scared, aren't you?"

"Do you have no manners? A son hitting his father—that's unfilial."

"Second Brother, you son of a b*tch."

"Here, take this."

Li Jiang was stunned, his eyes lit up, and he was practically drooling.

"You're actually smoking Zhonghua? You hit the jackpot, kid."

"It's nothing. Let's grab a drink tonight, my treat. Call those other animals too."

"Second Brother, you didn't go into some shady business, did you?"

"Get lost. I just got lucky and won a 500 Yuan scratch-off."

"God, why does all the dumb luck go to you?"

Back then, when Lin Feng was getting married and was short 100,000 Yuan, he asked around among his old classmates; some really didn't have the money, others made excuses to dodge him. Only Li Jiang, without a second word, took out the money and gave it to him.

In the end, until he was executed by firing squad, he never paid the money back.

It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say this was a friendship worth dying for.

"Lin Feng, why aren't you answering your phone?"

A girl wearing a floral dress, with a ponytail, and about 170 cm tall, approached him with an unfriendly expression.

Li Jiang's expression changed slightly; he wanted to say something but held back, though he looked at the girl with some hostility.

Zhang Ying, the belle of the Literature Department, was also the only girl Lin Feng had ever chased and acted as a simp for back in the day.

However, despite calling himself a playboy, he had acted as a simp for three years and hadn't even gotten a taste of anything until graduation.

After the business with Tian Xue ended, he had plunged headfirst into this relationship that could only be called a disgrace in his life.

They lost contact after graduation, but later he heard news in the alumni group that Zhang Ying had passed away.

She died from that kind of disease that people don't really like to talk about.

[A female college student, young and beautiful, has great attraction to the opposite sex. Hidden intelligence: Her beautiful appearance is just a facade; her heart is blinded by vanity. Gold-digger index: 100%. Her private life is chaotic; she can be slept with if you have money. She is about to ask you for money; purpose: abortion.]

In his previous life, it seemed to be at this exact time that she asked to borrow 500 Yuan from him.

After giving her the money, she disappeared for a month.

Later, she told Lin Feng she had taken a month off because of family issues.

Looking at it now, she had gone off to recover from an abortion.

"Lin Feng, lend me 500 Yuan."

Li Jiang was shocked, thinking Lin Feng was about to act like a fool again. Just as he was about to open his mouth to stop him, he heard Lin Feng laugh and say, "How long do you need to borrow it for? What's the interest?"

His eyes were like he was looking at an alien.

Zhang Ying frowned slightly and said in an unhappy tone, "Lin Feng, what do you mean? You want interest?"

"It's borrowing money, shouldn't there be interest? You also have to write me an IOU."

...

"Yingying, he wants interest on 500 Yuan and even an IOU? If you wanted it, the boys in our department would line up to lend it to you."

"This kind of person, even when given a chance, is useless."

The girl next to Zhang Ying was named Wang Li, weighing 170 jin, 160 cm tall, with a face as pitted and cratered as the surface of the moon.

This woman was lazy and gluttonous, hanging around Zhang Ying for free food and drinks; in his previous life, she had played no small part in scamming him.

"Then there you go, go ask someone else to lend it to you."

"Lin Feng, I'll ask you one last time: 500, are you lending it or not?"

"No."

"Don't you want to go shopping with me?"

"I do, if you pay, I'll consider it."

"You don't know what's good for you. Believe it or not, next time you bring me breakfast, I'll reject you in front of everyone at the girls' dormitory."

"Get lost, don't force me to slap you."

Zhang Ying was startled by Lin Feng's fierce expression. She took a step back, her legs went weak, and she plopped down onto the ground.